Relevance, a poem

Coming home then back
to bury a father
while my heart lay under attack
the home I long for
Minnesota dream
becomes a revolving door of necessity
Locked in L.A.
for a dry run
the road to success
repaired then undone
no longer entertainment
no longer capturnig souls
with my fame and delight
its been a good year since I let go
Branden washed in self absorption
Edison only wants some of the gold
that I spread around in the nineties
then turned to nickel shoal
My life towards Christ
is the road I choose
and all I see is half torn souls
on the streets of L.A.
arise oh, ministry
re-open the gates
so I can safeguard fantasy
and avoid fate
drinking communion wine
from a paper cup
spilled on the church carpet
for a sin to erupt
exorcise the vengeance
delegate the shame
Cast for in silence
Larry Welch is to blame.

Relative calmness

The threshold of my week was capitulated by a stroke by my father. My father, who seemed to streamline through life the last few years and I just talked to in an ordinary conversation...is now in a hospital unable to speak and function properly and may be facing eternity shortly. The urgency hasn't grasped onto me yet. I cannot travel to Minnesota til next week. Both my twin sister and my older sister flew in yesterday from Cali to Minnesota. My older sister is the power of attorney and has to make medical decisions.

I am in Outpost 41, the normal wear and tear of everyday life of L.A. and feel strangely marginalized by the event. I had a good relationship with my father until this happened and I have no regrets. He was a better man in his latter years and didn't seem to get his feathers ruffled as often. He still had acute cognitive functioning. I felt that we mended our fences and settled our differences. I wonder how much he can process now as he lies in the hospital bed, waiting on the mercy of others to help him. I will have more reflections later on this weekend.

A path for the chosen

Sometimes even as Christians, we do not have a way to release our pain. I have been burdened lately by situations stemming from my childhood. Part of it has to do with the interfacing on Facebook and daily reminders of people I knew from childhood. Not everyone on FB really is my friend. I thought about making a new category for known acquaintances called "Emotionally Unavailable." I would like to drop them as my friend, one in particular, but the history is so long between our families, it would seem as if a piece of my childhood would be forever gone. God is weeding my past to cultivate my future. Some people no longer belong in my life and have not for a long time. I have two hometown friends on the West Coast now that I share a stronger bond with. I am still looking North for relief. My vagabond tendencies are taking me in a new direction. If I settle back in Minnesota, I will live in Lanesboro or Mankato. If I go up to live with Gina, it will be Spokane, Wa. Thats all for now...back to work.

Michael Jackson Tribute Radio Show - 1 year anniversary

This edition of the Ernest Experience Radio Show with Brandi Walker from Wyldflow3r, myself, Chris Johnson from Paisley Radio and the host, Ernest Sewell IV of the Ernest Experience Radio Show is a commemoration of Michael Jackson's music with some commentary on his life and his legacy. Follow the link.

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/ernestexperienceradioshow/2010/06/26/michael-jackson--a-tribute-51-years-in-the-making

Please listen. I was honored to be on the show and part of the King of Pop's memory making.

Telling the full truth

I had an awful day....things are tough for me now....the Craigs list scam was a nail in my future coffin. I was scammed by a market research person in Colorado who mailed me an authentic looking check for $2,500. all i did was sign up for a research market survey and the next day a $2,500 check arrived. I remember looking at it and thinking....is this real? Could this really happen to me? Life did become more brutal that day....which was a Wednesday. I got a check, I took it to the bank and B of A wouldn't cash it becuz it didn't have my middle name on the check. So I took it to my bank and deposited it and within a 1/2 hour the bank mgr called to tell me the B o f A in Atlanta wouldn't honor it. I felt so light and happy that I had a check to cover my debts and all of a sudden it was torn away from me in an exact instant. But moreso, I felt like I had been blessed and that this blessing that came outta nowhere came from God. Now it just feels like a twisted life lesson. I was a gullible fish in a pond of con artists. The person spent $24.53 in overnight express mail to send it directly to my house. It seems rather tragic that someone would spend that money to see a boomerang effect to ultimately screw up someone 's life and ruin my bank account potentially. It is a tragic fact. If it wasn't for the fast action of the bank mgr at my unmentioned bank, I would be facing even bounced check charges. Now its just a sadly mistaken backlash. By the way, the check was issued through ExxonMobil so now I have to tell them about the scam. The cute little personal banker who had a leigh on at Bof A today for the fourth of July said the scam people did a good job creating the check. It had four to five security features on it.

Despair

doctrine bleeding
from pre conditioned corridors
bound by ritual
broken by lease
misplaced desire
unfufilled trust
burning emblem
on the back of my jeans
breakaway to the outer banks
of the Mississippi, and Cape Fear
her soul scattered in a thousand places
her life forgotten
on the windy shore
of discomfort
pride swallowed
on Pilgrims's Rock
where only God can remember.

jdh
7.01.10

Wiseblood

I am weaving this blog from a novel by Flannery O'Connor and my former friend, Maureen. The central character in the novel is someone who used to be into Jesus but begins to display behavior that avoids Jesus due to his unrepented sin. He becomes downright ugly about denying Jesus which as Christians know is soul wrenching to do so. He almost at the level of blashpheming the Holy Spirit. He is a dark protagonist.

In a similar but not such a dramatic sense, I waited 6 years for a response from a former Stoughtonite. When I got it, it was rather raw and obtrusive....and rude. She complained about her own life in a way that I should have sensed it. She cliched herself as a tag, a miner's daughter tag. I couldn't actually have had empathy for someone who did not appear to have a pulse for six years. She insinuated I didn't have any comprehension on how I might have paid her bills. Could I have known or probed or sent a band radio signal that this was on my radar? I figured she was upset about her divorce and leave it alone. If you needed the old man around for the mortgage, why ax him?

All of these questions are blanks in mind formation in an imaginary conclave that no one could fill but her. Her, pent up and expressionless in her questioning glare in a vacant room of sixth sense apparitions. Designed in part for the world to see, her bleeding sorrow, her unforrgiveness, her concealed love.